2018 Website Design & Marketing Statistics

28 Nov

In the digital marketing and website design world, it can be hard to know exactly what’s working and what’s not. Luckily, in 2018 we can measure growth, track clicks and engagement, and we have access to statistics. Even luckier for us, Design Rush took the liberty of compiling some key statistics for us.

Mobile Optimisation continues its take over

In 2018 we’ve seen mobile search surpass that 50 per cent level, as in more than half of all searches are coming from mobile devices. Now, there’s word that by 2021, 54 per cent of all online sales will come from mobile e-commerce.

This means that while desktop versions of websites are still clearly essential, mobile versions are beginning to weigh equally. Mobile optimisation can be a touch more complex in e-commerce and users tend to be more forgiving when online stores’ mobile sites aren’t perfect. In 2019 we’ll see more of a push for website design getting this absolutely correct and we’ll see the online stores who’re getting it right, see more traffic and conversions.

On top of this statistic, we’ve seen Klick predict that 30% of web browsing will be screenless by 2020. Thanks to AI (Google Home, Alexa) voice search is about to become huge. As for totally screenless browsing, we’re yet to find out whether Artificial Intelligence Optimisation is about to become a thing in the web design world.

UX Website Design is as important as we keep saying

We’ve talked about UX Design on the Sonder blog a fair amount. Our designers are huge fans of UX in web design, with good reason. Back in 2005 it might’ve been acceptable to search for something on Google, click the appropriate link and scribble on a pad while you waited for the page to load. No more. In 2018, 38 per cent of users will stop using a website if the layout is unattractive and 39 per cent will leave if the images don’t load or the site itself is taking too long to load.

In its essence, this statistic means that 38-39 per cent of users aren’t willing to use a low quality or an outdated website. You could have such amazing SEO that your business shows up right at the top of the first page of SERP. But if your website is outdated, designed/developed poorly, or not optimised for technical SEO, you’ll still be losing almost two in five potential users.

The solution, find a web design agency (hey!) to redesign your website with the user’s experience as a priority and ensuring the website is optimised for image sizes and loading times. If users can find the product or service they’re looking for with ease and no wait time, there’s a much stronger chance of receiving a sale or enquiry.

Landing Pages are taking off

The age old rule in website design is that your CTA (call to action) should be found above the fold for maximum conversions. There was a time where we believed the more minimalistic or short a web page, the higher chance of converting. There’ve been a lot of trends and theories regarding CTAs, their placement, and their conversion rate. Now we have a new statistic that says long landing pages generate 220 per cent more leads than CTAs above the fold do.

2018 saw a bit of a trend towards using landing pages for SEO. As in, if you wanted to rank for something relatively specific, you could create a landing page within your website. The headline and subheading on Google would serve as a front door, with the landing page itself serving as a kind of welcome point. It features all of the relevant details the user would be looking for, before directing the user with a CTA.

Content is King

Content marketing grew so much in 2018. Google algorithms placed more value in well-researched, insightful content – which was super exciting to see. This meant we saw companies push for content marketing and thus, we saw this influx of real, quality content… not just clickbait. Content marketing can come in the form of a blog post, a video on Facebook, or even an infographic. Research has found that content marketing receives three times the leads per dollar spent than PPC (Pay Per Click) does.

What does it mean? It means we should see content marketing continue well into the future. But more specifically, it means competition in this sphere is going to boom. So the content is going to need to get competitive. We’re talking helpful content that no one’s seen before. There will be more companies sourcing their own data and conducting their own research to stay on top.

Algorithms who? Facebook still strong

Earlier this year marketers, particularly social media marketers were kind of losing their minds. There was talk of Facebook’s algorithms changing and the newsfeed prioritising users’ friends content over pages’ content. We thought there’d be fierce competition for Facebook users to see our content, news publications were re-strategising. Turns out, it didn’t happen. In fact, almost the opposite did. We’ve now seen the Facebook app throw in a ‘Watch’ section including a ‘Top picks for you’ and ‘Watchlist’ sub sections within. So, Facebook has actually further prioritised pages’ content.

New research says 97 per cent of B2C (business to consumer) marketers advertised via Facebook this year. We can see a relatively big jump with Instagram following at 72 per cent for B2C marketers and LinkedIn at 79 per cent for B2B (business to business) marketers.